Disclaimer: I don't own Avengers.


Illusions were an art that Thanos had learned ages ago and he did them with ease. He enjoyed the subtle art that mimicked reality around them. His current project was making a Chitauri who he had just made resilient enough to be thought of as a sophisticated being, look and sound like the object of his current affections. Thanos didn't trust the slithering serpent known by the name Loki.

Didn't trust that no matter how he cried that he would serve him, that he wouldn't crumble at the first sight of his brother, or any other family member. Thanos also wasn't sure that the snake wouldn't hide from him, or disobey just to spite him once they were far away enough from each other. So he had made an illusion. He had combed through the thing called Loki enough to know his thoughts and memories and he had made him into a toy that he could control, even as the original owner of his face and experience watched in horror. It was almost better than the torture. Almost. His new toy was so fun to play with. That was another reason he didn't want to lose him, even if it meant getting out of the void. This way he would get out and still have his play thing.

Months of work had all led up to this moment. Thanos put his hand on the serpents back and heard him screech in pain due to the various wounds from their play time together that showed through the few scraps of clothes that hadn't been severed yet. Thanos used his hand to turn him, forcing him to look at his counterpart that was just about to go through the Tesseract. The serpent stared at his mirror image who had just enough of his memories so that it could pretendto be him. One had armor and a scepter and the other wounds and pain. Other than those difference they would look utterly the same. Not one person should be able to tell that the serpent was never there and that he still keeping him company.

The only thing they would be focused on was the scene the serpent's reflection would be making.

It was all meant to fail anyways. There was a reason that it had to be Loki after all. Who else would they imprison but not kill? Who else would they be so angry with they were undoubtedly not going to spend much time thinking logically about it. He would get the Infinity Gauntlet and the Tesseract, and then the real fun would begin. He grinned.